Friday, December 21, 2007

Some Thoughts on Christmas

Certainly, Christmas needs to be defended for what it is: a celebration of the birth of Christ, the Christian Messiah (the Koran also says Jesus was the Messiah, and that he was born of a virgin, and that God placed Jesus in the womb of Miriam -- but Moslems then get uptight about whether or not Jesus was the Son of God). Without Jesus having been born, there would be no holiday to be happy about. So I agree with the author of the above link, Roland Martin that all this political correctness is annoying. However, let me point out a few things that I find annoying about the author's opinions as they developed in the piece.

First, he complains about the use of "X-mas," which only goes to show his complete ignorance of Christian history. It is not an English letter X, but the Greek letter chi. You will note that "chi" sounds a lot like "Christ," or, to use the Greek, "Christos." Further, you will note that the X looks a lot like a cross. Thus, the Greek letter chi has been used from the beginning to signify Christ. Thus, chi-mas, X-mas, is perfectly acceptable and historically quite ancient.

The second annoyance comes from his pooh-poohing on the giving of gifts. I love what Ayn Rand -- no Christian, she -- said about why she loved Christmas. She said that Christmas was a wonderful season precisely because you gave gifts. More, Christmas was the time when you gave gifts to those whom you valued most. Let me go a bit further, and say that one can learn much about your values and who you value based upon your giving. I have given of my own time and money to help the needy -- but I have never done so, as Martin suggests we should do, at the expense of those whom we should value most: our family.

Along those lines, I will post today and tomorrow, but on Sunday I will be driving to Kentucky with my family to see my father. I'll be gone a week, but I'll be back after the new year just full of opinions. :-)

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